A legendary figure among U.S. college hoops coaches, Majerus was remembered for many things, not the least of which was his larger-than-life personality, an unapologetic combination of unyielding passion and unwavering conviction.

More than 500 wins spanning 30 seasons with Marquette, Ball State, Utah, and St. Louis. A dozen trips to the NCAA tournament, including 1998 when he guided Utah to a Final Four appearance. A gold medal as assistant coach of Team USA at the 1994 World Championships. All are honours were surely cited when family, friends, and fans eulogized the 64-year-old who died from heart failure Dec. 2.

Then there’s the things Majerus did that didn’t show up in the basketball record books, but will never be forgotten by those who were impacted by them.

One such example can be found right here in Edmonton.

Late in 2008, Majerus was the headliner of Basketball Alberta’s Super Weekend, a symposium for the game’s coaches, officials, and stakeholders. His visit lasted only two days, but its impact still reverberates through gyms and playgrounds across the province.

In the four years since Basketball Alberta has become a model provincial sports body. Once racked by debt and fractured external relationships, the Edmonton-based organization is now on solid financial ground and cultivating hoops at the grassroots level.

"(The visit by Majerus) solidified my focus on what we had to do in Alberta to regain control of the game, which I really felt that Basketball Alberta had lost, for a whole bunch of reasons,” Basketball Alberta’s executive director Paul Sir says. “Not because of anybody being bad or rude or trying to undermine the game, it was just erosion over time.

“So it helped me look and say, ‘If I really want this to be something special, we've got to commit to it like Rick Majerus commits to his basketball ... we've got to get after this and pursue it with that same passion and commitment.’"

As Majerus health was deteriorating this fall, Basketball Alberta could not have been more robust.

In September, the organization hosted the first CIS/ACAC Shootout, a pre-season tournament for post-secondary teams, and held its annual coaching conference which featured Canadian Olympic women’s basketball coach Allison McNeill. Meanwhile, an Albertan team of university players finished second internationally at the FIBA 3X3 World Tour.

Majerus took leave of his duties with the St. Louis Billikens in August and never returned to the court.

The juxtaposed fates of Majerus and Basketball Alberta could be seen as sadly ironic, yet somehow befitting the legacy of the mighty coach who lent a helping hand to an organization that so desperately needed it.

Sir had known Majerus several years before becoming Basketball Alberta’s executive director in 2008. They shared a close mutual friend, and when Majerus was coaching at Utah, he recruited Sir’s son, Steve, a former Ross Sheppard star (Steve would go on to San Diego State and Northern Arizona and now plays pro).

“I thought, especially with Basketball Alberta being in such a broken state at the time, we needed to bring somebody in at the highest level, to make a statement that we were serious about the organization and what it represented in terms of the quality and experiences that we wanted to provide for people,” Sir says.”That was the real reason I asked Rick Majerus to come.”

Majerus, who was about to begin his second season at Saint Louis, happily accepted Sir’s invite, making special arrangements to fly in from Australia for the weekend before departing to Maine on a recruiting trip.

His 48-hour tour-de-force included a fundraising dinner, roundtable discussion, and multiple coaching clinics at Jasper Place high school.

And it left a bunch of flabbergasted Albertans in its wake.

“The thing with Rick is that he doesn't just show up and do something, he shows up, does what he does, and then when he leaves you've got a million stories about those two hours he was there,” says Sir, who could pen a volume on Majerus’s visit.

There’s the story about Majerus falling out of bed while taking a nap in the Jasper Place nurse’s room, in the process losing both his cellphone – which contained all his recruiting info -- and temper. There’s the session when he started giving inside dirt on certain NBA players, then realized the whole thing was being filmed, walked over to the cameraman, handed him a crisp $20 and took his tape. And then there was the dressing-down he gave to a coach who ran well over his allotted time and into Majerus’s slot, which was wildly entertaining to all except the poor recipient of the verbal tirade.

The best tale, though, has to be about the giant of a coach who gave his time to a blip on the basketball map.

"That really was the mustard seed for the regeneration of basketball in Alberta and Basketball Alberta,” says an appreciative Sir. “I attribute that to Rick Majerus coming."